


Familial Duties

by lexyhamilton (ohheichoumyheichou)



Series: How Have the Mighty Fallen [8]
Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 01:59:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohheichoumyheichou/pseuds/lexyhamilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David has married Michal and does not this expect to change things between him and Jonathan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familial Duties

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2006, reposted from LJ, AFF.net etc  
> Blanket disclaimer on all my biblefic: this is fiction inspired by stories and characters in the Old Testament, not any sort of exegesis or legitimate interpretation.

Michal had wept all evening. David was out again, the month's uncleanliness soon to be upon her again, and he would avoid her for two weeks. Two more weeks, and then he would find another reason to shun her. She thought he loved her once. Now she did not seek his love, only his adequacy as husband. She feared she need to secure him by bearing a child, but he was determined not to allow her that. Perhaps she should abandon him for another while she was still intact? A virgin. What a scandal it would cause for David, if only anyone else learned that a wife of five months could remain unused. Not entirely unused, Michal thought with angry tears. David had no qualms about telling her to use her mouth. Once he had even attempted the unthinkable, but she fought him off before he could pain her.

"Are you mad?" she had screamed that night, holding a tabouret as protection against him.

"How are you to know affairs of state, my simple-minded wife? Have you thought that producing an heir now will set Saul upon me?"

He sweet-talked her back into bed, and made no more advances, but refused to lie with her properly. Conniving, selfish, wretched David, and yet she still loved him-- his radiant looks, his unearthly musical talents, his military fame. Her thighs clenched with desire at the mere picture of him-- better in memory than in flesh and blood-- even as she wept her grievances to the cold hearth.

She needed a sympathetic ear. Her older sister Merab was married and far away now, her brothers rougher men, spoiled by royal upbringing. Her parents were out of the question-- Saul having a deep fear and hatred of David that he could not conceal from her, and her old mother Ahinoam grown bitter ever since she was abandoned for a younger woman.

She was all alone, and yet there was Jonathan-- the eldest of the family. She had never known him as well as she would have liked, only a silly baby of five when he was wedded. Yet it was Jonathan she could trust best. She headed boldly to Saul's austere palace-- the king liked to keep his sons close.

"Is my brother Jonathan already in bed?" she inquired of a servant passing in the corridor.

"In bed but just as easily out of it," Jonathan called through the door.

"My voice is too loud for a respectable lady," Michal said, smiling and blushing when her brother emerged, wrapping a robe closed.

"You've been crying. And your hair lies exposed for men to see after marriage?"

"Jonathan, would I had not married David."

Jonathan's face went ashen. "Has he disgraced you?"

"Not disgraced." Michal smirked, but the tears could not be withheld. "I see him too rarely to give him cause for divorce."

Jonathan embraced the girl, and she muffled her sobs into his chest. Finally she emerged, gazing up with reddened eyes. "You love David, almost as much as I. Influence him, I beseech you, Brother. Tell him to come home to me when he is in the city. Tell him to cease his clever ways of avoiding me when I am fit to touch. I want to bear him a child before my womb withers from longing."

A sister's tears Jonathan felt land on his hand, tiny and warm. David, who was ever eager to jump into bed with him-- even in the midst of war, when it was so distasteful-- how could he be so unfeeling to his sanctified woman?

"I know I am nothing but Saul's daughter to him. He is ambitious to the teeth. But does he not cherish my love in the least? Does it mean so little to him?"

She was crying again, her whole body shaking.

"David can be ambitious, I know, and callous, I learn now, but he is not wicked. I will mention it when I next see him."

"Thank you, Brother. He will heed your advice-- each time he speaks your name his eyes glow with admiration."

Jonathan returned into the room, donning more suitable garments and escorted his sister back through the streets. It was enough scandal that a married woman walked about without a headcover, but alone and unescorted at this time of night was veritably dangerous, even in the renowned safety of Judea's fortified capital.

He returned only to find David sitting on the floor at the entrance to Jonathan's chambers.

"You are wanted at home, Cousin--" Jonathan stopped short when David raised his eyes, as tear-ridden as Michal's had been.

"Jonathan, your father means to kill me. He threw a javelin at me as I played for him. You know his aim. He missed because God shook his arm, in His infinite mercy to me... But what I am to do now, I cannot guess."

Jonathan seated himself beside him, grasping David's shoulder. "God has a destiny for you. My father is tormented by bad humours. Before you began your career here he nearly killed me for a petty infraction. A day hence, he came to me weeping, asking for my forgiveness, as if it had not been he who left bruises on my throat for eating honey on the wrong day. A sad open secret, these days. Do not fret, do not go to see him for a few days until he calls for you in remorse."

"Your love for your father amazes me. Ingrate that I am, I thought Jesse was difficult because he did not spread his sons' chores evenly, and here you overlook attempts on your life."

"Saul is ill. I treat my father well while bearing a fear that I have an ember of his same flame. Who can foretell how I will storm and rave if I live to old age?"

"Jonathan, you are too virtuous to throw javelins in mad fits."

"Now you insult my prowess in battle." Jonathan smiled. David grinned.

"I should like to be killed by you in a murderous rage rather than lift a hand against you."

"You see? You are more devoted to me than I am to my father. But let us not take these matters lightly."

David nodded, still smiling, eyes once shimmering with frightened tears now full of desire.

Jonathan glanced sidewise at his room, thinking of his ill wife abandoned in her bed, his sister sitting up waiting for her reprobate husband to show his face. David's lips touched his jaw, and all misgiving faded in the face of straightforward physical desire.

"Not here." Jonathan said, and led David into a chamber far from any other occupants, furnished only with a table and a few seats. No bed, no long luxurious night in David's arms-- this was to be a short show of love before each returned to his respective familial duties.

Like the lyre and the spear, Jonathan's body was as an instrument-- acquiring new life under David's hand. David grasped his lover's hips, thumbs digging into the smallest bit of soft flesh at his sides. Jonathan's head fell forward between his arms, anchored by bent elbows on the table, no moans, hardly a hint of whether it was pleasure or pain he braced himself against.

"Jonathan, Beloved, when will you let me..." David had to pause, overcome by sensation as he pistoned in and out. "When will I see your face as I know you?"

Jonathan drew breath sharply and mumbled something into the table.

"What was that?"

"Please keep moving."

No reply to the question posed, but David could not summon his faculties of speech any longer, pounding himself in with more urgency now, inflamed by the wantonness of Jonathan's words, onward all the way to blessed relief.

"Turn now perhaps, hmm?" David mumbled as he licked a brief wet trail between his lover's shoulderblades, uneager to pull out of the hot pressure of Jonathan's body just yet. His hand traveled around, locking around his companion's excitement, already leaking moisture. "Will I ever watch your face as we know each other?"

"I have no desire to face you," Jonathan said quietly.

"What?"

"I do not want to throw my legs up, in the manner of women intent on conceiving."

"Jonathan." David laughed, unoccupied hand finding Jonathan's to clasp. "You are far dearer to me than any woman..."

"I do not want to disobey God's word. You will not lie with me as you lie with women." David's right hand had a peculiar feel to it-- fingertips callused by the lyrestrings, palm callused by the sword. Jonathan could feel his thoughts go hazy as he began to thrust against this masterful hand.

"Cousin, I could not mistake you for a woman from the front or back, I assure you."

"Perhaps you should be seeking solace in your own house with your wife-- my sister--" Jonathan's words were interrupted by a sharp intake of breath. The hand bringing him to climax with such determination was succeeding. A traitorous languid moan escaped his chest, his body quaking, violently thrusting his backside back into David who had him still impaled.

With the swiftest of motions, David separated their bodies, slipping down between Jonathan's stately legs and turning around. No sooner did Jonathan's excitement meet the soft moisture of David's mouth than the royal line shot into the back of David's throat. Thick and sticky were Saul's future heirs, David thought to himself, smiling, swallowing all.

"David! You sully the mouth that sings such heavenly psalms..." Jonathan stuttered, less reprimanding than simply bewildered.

"Nothing is sweeter than your enjoyment, Jonathan. Seed is wasted and unclean when outside the body."

"Rise up off your knees, David," Jonathan said, straightening slowly, wincing with the echoes of pain that always followed this sort of love. He offered David his hand, but the youth stayed kneeling.

"I remain on the floor before my elder, my better, the royal Prince. That he may not doubt my respect because of what I may say and do in frivolous loveplay."

"Cousin, nonsense, I bear no grudge against you. It is Michal's words that lowered my spirits before you came to my quarters."

"I love you dearly, Jonathan-- I have more love than I know how to dispense..."

"Then head home and dispense the remainder on my poor sister, who suspects she is at fault for your unjust coldness."

David was on his way out, when Jonathan caught his wrist and pulled him back for a kiss.

"David, pay no heed to my melancholy-- I fear I might take after my father after all. Yet do not scorn Michal. Have a child with her, I beseech you."

"Will not my having a child with Michal be a claim to the throne? A challenge and affront to my dear Jonathan, who will make such a wise ruler?"

"David, you will be king."

"Jonathan..."

"It is prophesied. I put my faith in God. I serve His purposes by living my life as I think I should. You should have a child. It will be precious to me, David-- the house of Saul and house of Jesse melded, think of it!"

David smiled, hands running over Jonathan's arms before quitting the room.


End file.
